


A Journey to Santa Fe

by withcameraandpen



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Gen, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 14:46:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16855960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withcameraandpen/pseuds/withcameraandpen
Summary: Jack and Katherine take their family on the road to a long-dreamed-of destination, but with five people packed in a car who all think they're right, things aren't as smooth as Jack hopes.





	A Journey to Santa Fe

**Day 1 – Queens, New York**

“Ow! Dammit!”

Jack pulled away from the stuffed trunk, rubbing the muscle in his shoulder until the pain began to fade. “How can three tiny kids pack so much—”

“Language,” snapped a familiar sour voice. Andrew Kelly trudged past his father and into the garage. How so much contempt could sit in one fifteen-year-old body, especially if that fifteen-year-old had been well-fed and warm since the day he was born, was forever lost on Jack.

“Jus’ who are you tellin’ me to watch my mouth?” he replied as Andrew deposited his sketchbook in the backseat. “That music ya listen to ain’t—isn’t so keen on keepin’ clean.”

His head perked up, his face reddening. “You listened to my music?”

“When ya blast it loud ‘nuff for us to hear, yeah.” Jack smirked at him and, with one last roll to his shoulder, returned to his task: getting his wife’s suitcase to lie flat. “Though it didn’t sound much like any song I ever heard. Just a big string o’ swear words with music.”

Andrew was as red as a tomato. “It’s—it isn’t—it’s not that bad!” he spluttered.

“Ain’t sayin’ it is.” Jack shoved the suitcase down again. Finally, that troublesome corner slotted into the back of the trunk, and he was able to squeeze the last duffel bag on top of it and shut the trunk door. “Just don’t blast it when ya brother’s trying to sleep. Okay?”

Andrew said nothing and slunk away, almost toppled by his sister as she raced through the door, a streak of bright red darting around Jack and to the other side of the car. When it stopped to open the car door, he saw Lucy and the tote bag on her shoulder, bulging with books. “Lucy, are you really going to read all of those?”

She stopped in her tracks, eyes bulging almost as much as her bag. “On the way to New Mexico? Do you know how far that is?”

“A five-day drive,” said Katherine, four-year-old Peter on her hip, a bag of snacks hanging from her shoulder, and a familiar ring of keys in her hand. She tossed the keys to Jack and said, “Left those on the counter.”

“Knew I was forgettin’ somethin’.”

Katherine went to get Peter situated in his car seat. Lucy buckled in, too, already burying her nose in a book. Laughing, Katherine joined Jack near the trunk and said, “She brought her shortlist. She was about two steps away from bringing the whole shelf with her.”

“You mean she didn’t already?”

She smirked at him, her arms snaking around his waist. “Packing went well, I see.”

He patted the trunk door affectionately. “Took some elbow grease. These kids is outgrowin’ this car, I think.”

Katherine’s eyebrows lifted. “Then it might be time for an upgrade.”

He rolled his eyes. Not this again. “We’s doin’ just fine. The car runs swell.”

She pouted. “Aren’t you itching for a change? We’ve had this thing since before Andrew was born.”

“Yeah, an’ I keep her runnin’ pretty smooth, don’t I?” His hands ran up her arms. “Last I checked, you said ya like watchin’ me work on her.”

“For the record, I don’t like when you call the car a _her_ , but otherwise…”

“I know what my wife likes.” He smirked and kissed her, keenly aware that that was about all the action he would get over the course of their trip.

“Yeah,” she murmured as he pulled away, her eyes darting to the rear windshield. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw a bright red head of hair whip back around. “You’re sure we shouldn’t have just flown?”

“First Andrew, and now you,” he scoffed. He’d heard this proposal from two fronts, and it didn’t sound any less extravagant in his wife’s voice. “Me an’ the boys drove all over the country when we was younger, with a lot more passengers an’ a lot less stuff. We can handle five days with the library Lucy’s bringin’.”

But Katherine wasn’t so easily swayed. “I’m worried about Andrew. I don’t know what’s going on with him, but packing all of us into a car for six hours a day won’t help it. Won’t be long until—” She gestured between them, her hands mimicking an explosion.

“Then it’s ‘bout time he learned some patience.” They were heading out on their first family vacation in years since Peter was born. The least his oldest could do was stop the sulking. “He’s just stubborn, that’s all. He got that from you.”

Katherine laughed. “There’s no way. Jack, he’s exactly like you.”

“No, I’m not.” Andrew had reappeared in the doorway, shooting his parents a death glare. “I’m not like anyone. Can we go?”

“Someone’s an eager beaver,” said Katherine. Andrew scowled (again) and climbed into his side of the backseat, shutting the door with a loud slam. Jack watched her smile dim as she retreated into her mind again, gears turning. She always got so worried about Andrew. Then again, when was the last time Jack had seen him crack a smile?

“He’s just hittin’ his rebellious phase,” he soothed. “You remember what we was like then. Y’know, I bet ya dad would laugh if he knew ‘bout all this.”

Katherine smiled again, and the world got a little brighter. “I’m sure he’d call it payback.”

“I bet. C’mon, let’s get rolling.”

They kissed one last time and then got in the car. Katherine distributed the water bottles from the snack bag as Jack pulled their car out onto the road. 

Andrew leaned forward. “Ma, can you put on—”

“You know the rules, buddy,” said Jack, reaching for the radio. Gentle strumming of an acoustic guitar poured from the speakers, and a voice made purposefully hoarse followed along, singing about fields and anger. “Driver picks the music fo’ the first half-hour.”

“Jack,” said Katherine gently, glancing back at Andrew, “this isn’t really road-trip material, is it?”

He heaved a sigh. “One o’ these days, one o’ you will be on my side.” 

 

**Day 2 – Columbus, Ohio**

“When’s the next rest stop?”

Jack groaned, glancing at his daughter in the rearview mirror. “We just went half an hour ago. Why didn’t ya go then?”

Lucy shrank behind her copy of Treasure Island. “I didn’t _have_ to go then!”

“We’ll find a new one soon,” said Katherine, examining their route on the phone. “We’re getting close to Columbus. There’ll definitely be one there. Mmm, you think the vending machine has Almond Joys?”

Jack glanced at the three Almond Joy wrappers stuffed into the slot in the car door. His wife had cleaned out the machine at the last rest stop, since apparently the candy bar had become too scrumptious to wait for until Halloween. But all he said was, “We’ll find a stop with a convenience store and getcha a big bag, how ‘bout that?”

“We shouldn’t,” she replied, though her eyes lit up as bright as the sun. Jack fell silent, in case she took him seriously again.

“Just hold it,” said Andrew, looking up from his sketchbook. “Let’s keep going.”

Jack caught his oldest son’s eyes in the mirror (and a glimpse of his youngest, napping peacefully after being tired out by Sharon, Lois, and Bram). “We’ll stop soon and get right back on the road.”

“Are you kidding? It took us, like, an hour to get out of the last one!” 

“It did not take an hour!” Navigating their way to the last rest stop, surrounded on all fronts by knotty overpasses and roundabouts, had been one hell of a challenge, but definitely not an insurmountable one. “It took us five minutes to get out. We—it was fine.”

“More like fifteen,” murmured Katherine. Jack shot her a look, and she quickly added, “I’m a reporter, babe. We keep our facts straight.”

“We don’t have to stop,” said Lucy timidly.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll find a spot.”

Jack threw his concentration into the road ahead of them. Apparently, Columbus residents didn’t drive much—the roads were all cracked and ground down, potholes as far as the eye can see. Now, Jack was a good driver, but there was only so much he could do on a battleground like this.

As they drove on, Andrew’s grumbling from the back grew into a steady, constant rhythm, always followed shortly by frantic erasing. Frankly, it was pretty clear to Jack that the kids had inherited their focus from their mother. Jack couldn’t have drawn with the constant stream of changing scenery, and how Lucy managed to read between her younger brother’s songs and her older brother’s complaining was a total mystery. 

Jack let out an audible “oof!” as they passed over an especially deep pothole in the road, jolting Peter out of his nap. He awoke with a sharp cry, loud enough to edge out Andrew’s angry words—barely.

“Dad!” Andrew snapped. “Dad, you ruined my drawing!”

“It was the road!” he retorted as his wife twisted around in her seat to check on Peter. “I can’t fill in the damn road fo’ ya, can I?”

“Language!”

“I ain’t gonna be lectured ‘bout language from my own son!”

“Stop!” yelled Katherine and Lucy at the same time. Lucy had a white-knuckle grip on her book while Katherine reached back to Peter. “Are you okay? Did you bump your head?”

Peter nodded tearfully. 

“How bad does it hurt?”

“Just a li’l.”

“Okay, honey.” Katherine turned around, and Andrew snickered. “It’s funny. Peter talks like you, Dad.”

Jack’s eyes darted up to the rearview mirror, where he caught Andrew’s shit-eating grin. “What’re ya talkin’ about?”

“All broken and stuff.”

Jack sucked in a breath, but Katherine beat him to the punch. “That’s enough, Andrew. Apologize to your father.”

Had he and Katherine really done such a poor job at raising their son that he bullied him for his speech? They were fortunate enough to be raised by an educated mother, live in a good neighborhood and go to a good school, all things Jack hadn’t had growing up. Had they swapped out their kindness for brains?

A short, tight “Sorry” came from the backseat. Jack’s white-knuckle grip on the wheel relaxed. And they drove on, passing the next rest stop they came to without anyone remarking upon it.

 

**Day 3 – Springfield, Missouri**

“Ma, Lucy’s books are in my space!”

“No, they’re not!” Lucy retorted. “The bag just goes onto the hump. It’s not in his space!”

“But it’s in Peter’s space,” said Katherine, over the air whipping in from the half-open window. Her head leaned into the current, and she was taking big gulps of air.  
“Lucy, try to keep your books to yourself.”

Lucy pouted and did her best to gather her library back into the tote bag. Jack took Katherine’s hand into his, squeezing it on the arm rest. She had been quiet all day after waking up under the weather this morning, after her insistence on sleeping right next to the shitty motel air condition on full blast. She had always been a warm sleeper, which made her a thrill to curl up with in the biting New York winters, but in the middle of a cross-country heatwave? Not so much.

Katherine shot him an appreciative look and then returned to her lazy gazing out the window. Strangers might think her thoughts were drifting, but Jack could practically feel the pulse of her mind as her thumb stroked his hand. His wife’s mind never rested; he had always loved that about her.

Andrew pulled his hoodie more tightly around himself, combing down his windblown hair. How he could wear that warm thing at the height of summer was beyond Jack. “I’m getting chilly. Can you close the window?”

Katherine sighed quietly and reached for the button. Jack said, “Ya ma isn’t feeling well, Andrew. She needs some airflow.”

His speech was stilted and slow, now that he paid attention to every syllable. You could take the kid outta Manhattan, but…

Andrew huffed and zipped up his coat. “It’s still cold.”

“It’s July,” said Lucy, who quickly shot a smile at her father in the rearview mirror. “It ain’t that hot.”

Andrew snorted as Peter snacked on his applesauce, too entertained by his family to understand their brewing tensions. “‘Ain’t’ is not a word.”

“Andrew,” said Katherine firmly. “Not today.”

“Just saying.”

Katherine caught Jack’s eye and squeezed his hand. Ever since they met, Katherine had had a protective streak.

Jack turned back to the road. Peter set the applesauce on his lap while he fumbled with the spoon, Lucy returned to reading, and Andrew continued to sulk while watching the world pass by. It had been a quiet car ride—

Jack hit a bump.

The applesauce spilled from Peter’s lap into his brother’s, getting all over his hands and jeans. And Andrew flew into a fury.

“Peter!” Andrew hurriedly brushed the applesauce from his lap, splattering it on the car seat and the floor. “Ugh, Dad!”

“What?” snapped Jack while Katherine heaved a sigh and rooted around in the glove compartment for napkins.

“You’re such a shitty driver!”

“Watch your mouth.” Katherine pulled out a handful of crumpled fast-food napkins, reached back, and deposited them in Andrew’s lap.

“Hey, pal,” said Jack, “if ya wanna getcha permit and drive us all th’ way there, be my guest, butcha don’t seem too keen on that.”

Andrew turned beet red. He clenched a napkin in his fist. “Shut up!” 

“ _Both of you_ ,” hissed Katherine. “That’s enough. Lucy, clean up Peter.”

“Mhm.” Lucy nodded and went to clean up her baby brother. It was as though the outburst hadn’t fazed her at all, but that wide-eyed look on her face gave it away. 

Katherine leaned into the air current again, though she was far from relaxed. “This is exactly why we need a minivan.”

Was this some kind of joke to her? Their son needling him for every goddamn insecurity? Katherine had begged him to be an open father, an honest father so they didn’t grow up hating parts of themselves, but look at where her advice got him! “Christ, Katherine, enough about the minivan!” 

His wife’s eyes flashed dangerously. He had set the policy of never arguing in front of the children—they both thought it was best, but he had put it into words first. It was his policy they threatened to break. But one look at those eyes, and he knew she was aching to break it, too. “Really. It's enough,”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

“I’m serious! I don’t wanna hear anything about that fuckin’ van the rest of this trip.”

“Dad!” Lucy cried out.

“What?” said Andrew. “Don’t wanna hear Dad swear?”

Jack ignored them both. “Why the hell is you so dead-set on it, anyway?”

“Because we’re going to need a fourth seat!”

The car’s speed stuttered in response and a hard pit formed in Jack’s stomach. “What are you talkin’ about?”

“Dammit.” Katherine rubbed her eyes. “I didn’t want to tell you like this.”

_“Katherine, what are you talkin’ about?”_

Her face was as red as her hair. “I’m pregnant.”

Jack looked at her, eyes wide and heart pounding. His knuckles had gone white on the wheel. “What?”

“Watch the road!”

“Dad!”

Jack snapped back toward the road and yanked the wheel to the right. An SUV honked at them, laying on the horn for a full five seconds. Heart in his throat, beat in his ears, he guided the car haphazardly to the shoulder of the road and parked, and yet again silence befell the passengers, though this was the thickest silence the car had yet heard. 

Katherine tapped the button that switched on the hazard lights. Jack could practically hear the thousand and one things his wife had to say—that parking on the shoulder was dangerous, that they should find a place to stay for the night, that that fucking minivan would be a necessity in nine months.

They would have a fourth in nine months, if this road trip didn’t kill him first.

Katherine unbuckled her seatbelt. “I should drive.”

“No.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Jack, let me drive.”

“I can drive.” He started the car again, pulled back onto the highway, and flicked off the hazards, feeling his wife’s eyes on him the whole time.

 

**Day 4 – Amarillo, Texas**

The night was humid, the motel was shitty, and the Kelly family patriarch sat in his car, grateful, for once, to be left alone with his thoughts.

He and Katherine knew they were going to have boisterous, stubborn kids. They knew their kids would be no lesser rebels than they were in their younger years, and Jack had actively welcomed their spirit. But when you got five people who all think they’re right in one car?

Six. It was going to be six soon enough.

Someone knocked on the passenger side window. Jack looked over and found Katherine standing there, wearing a paint-splattered sweatshirt over her silky pajamas. “It’s open.”

She nodded and climbed inside. “Heard you leave. Figured you would need some space, but you were out so long I got worried.” She paused, looking over him with those always-curious eyes. Nothing escaped her notice. “Talk to me. We barely talked all day.”

Jack had thought a whole day of silence on the road would be nice. Lucy read her books with almost a religious fervor, Peter slept, and Andrew hardly looked up from his sketchbook. But he could practically hear the previous day’s argument sitting in the air in the car, trapped in everyone’s minds and staling the air. The tepid silence was a hard win, but it had become a prison of its own.

He leaned back in the seat, rubbing his eyes. “How am I gonna do this, Ace?” he groaned. “A fourth? If we’re learnin’ anything on this road to hell, it’s that I did a shitty job with th’ first three.”

“No, you didn’t.” Her lips pursed, and she gazed out at the lights of a strip mall in the distance. “You were so patient with them when they were young. Between birth and ten years old, you’re stellar.”

“Well, we got one o’ those. The other two—we barely see Lucy from behind her book, and Andrew…” He shook his head. “What’s goin’ on with him? Everythin’ I do an’ everythin’ I say isn’t good enough.”

“Remember?” she said. “This is just a phase he’s going through. We talked about it.”

“Phases don’t happen fo’ no reason. I didn’t wanna turn into my pop—”

“And you didn’t.” Katherine turned her whole body toward him in the seat and grasped his hand. “You are an excellent father, Jack. You’re caring, you’re kind, and you’re endlessly patient. You were more patient with them than I was, and I carried them all!”

“That don’t mean shit if Andrew hates me.” He pulled his hand from hers. His son couldn’t care less about him, that much was clear. “I don’t even know what I did, and he don’t talk t’ me long ‘nuff to tell me.”

Katherine went quiet. He could see the gears turning faster than ever, cogs locking in an attempt to solve this puzzle and bring peace to their family. Andrew had inherited his mother’s brains, for sure, but Jack could recognize his own instinct to fight any day.

Maybe it was an instinct, but instincts weren’t triggered for nothing.

Katherine opened her mouth, but the words didn’t quite come, as though the ink on the paper hadn’t yet dried. “You know what it is? I think it’s that you’re both very, very similar.”

“Jesus, Katherine, not this again.”

“No, really.” She didn’t look sure in her own words, as if she hadn’t figured out their meaning yet. She was as surprised by her conclusion as he was. “Every kid, regardless of who their parents are, wants to break away from them, right? They want to be their own person. And you and Andrew are so similar, and he knows that. He’s a smart kid. He wants to be his own entity, but he’s going about it all the wrong way. He’s separating too hard.”

“Ya jokin’.” He stared at her, dumbfounded. “Ya really think he’s doin’ all this because he’s overcorrectin’ his teenage rebellion?”

“Well, it doesn’t help when you needle him about his sensitivities.” She shot him a look. “You know how he gets about driving.”

“Fine, fine. So what do we do, then, huh? Jus’ keep lettin’ him be horrible to me an’ his siblings?”

Katherine bit her lip. “His behavior needs to change, but I think it’s going to be a while until he calms down.”

“I ain’t just gonna wait this out, Ace.”

“I’m not saying we do.” She reached for his hand again. He grasped hers gladly. “I’m saying that we don’t feed the fire while it burns. He’s a lot of emotions in a young kid. Like a shaken bottle of pop. We reprimand him, but then we let it go.”

He heaved another sigh. Letting it go? That would mean Andrew set the boundaries of the family. That would mean he won. “That’ll just tell him he has the run of the family. That he sets the rules.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” she implored. “He’s getting older. He wants to know that he has control over his life. If we bend, he won’t break.”

He gazed at her. She had come from a world of tight control, and he had come from a world of fighting for survival. Together they managed to raise their children comfortably, though even a comfortable lifestyle, the closest to middle ground any family could get, would push children into rebellion.

Well, he and Katherine didn’t have much of a leg to stand on when it came to rebelling.

“You is full o’ sayin’s like that.” He squeezed her hand again. “So I just leave him alone? Is that it?”

“When he gets out of line, I’ll take care of it. I think it’s best if you step down from discipline for a while.”

He let go of her hand and reached further across, spreading his hand across her stomach. “Ya really think we’re ready for number four? Think we can handle it?”

She grinned at him, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I certainly think so.”

 

**Day 5 – Santa Fe, New Mexico**

The sun was low in the sky, gilding the city that sprawled before their hotel room’s balcony. Katherine had convinced him that they should splurge on a decent room when they made it to the city, insisting that better lodgings would keep things running smoothly while on vacation.

Jack was taking in the sight of the city with Peter snoozing in his lap, his sketchbook set aside on the table. Katherine had lay down to nap, and Peter, the most curious and least careful of the Kellys, had passed into his father’s care.

He heard the sound of the door sliding open behind him, and then his oldest son’s voice. “Lucy’s asleep, too,” he said, sinking into the chair beside him. Andrew’s eyes darted down to the table, where Jack’s half-finished sketch lay open, and then kicked his bag underneath his chair. He heard the clatter of pens inside.

“Andrew—”

“So Mom’s having a baby.” Andrew’s voice was terse. “Again.”

“Yeah.” Jack offered a smile. “Shouldn’t be a big surprise to you, huh? You already been through it twice.”

“And you three times.” Andrew dove into his bag, pulling out his sketchbook and pencil. And as he began to draw a vaguely humanoid shape, he added, “I hope it’s a girl. She’ll even the playing field for Lucy.”

Jack’s heart swelled with pride. “Ya ma has a gift for knowin’ which it’ll be. Peter threw her fo’ a bit, but she guessed in time.”

“Hmm.” They lapsed into silence, only the sounds of the city and of Andrew’s pencil surrounding them. Jack hadn’t forgotten the conversation with his wife the previous night, but he couldn’t forget the week of tension with Andrew, either. And Jack had never been one to stand idly by.

“Hey, buddy.” Andrew didn’t respond to confrontation well. He had to go about this gently. “I wantcha t’ know I love ya.”

The pencil froze, but Andrew didn’t look up. He added, “I don’t know whatcha got goin’ on, but ya ma an’ I are here t’ help.”

“I don’t need your help.” He shut his sketchbook with a snap. “I don’t need any kind of help.”

“Okay.” He kept his voice level. “I just wantcha t’ know you ain’t alone.”

“Maybe I wanna be.” He shook his head, curling up in his chair. “I don’t want a lecture about how fortunate we are, Dad. But I just want a little more breathing room, y’know? It’s like the world’s always busting down my door, and I can’t ever get a break.”

Jack knew the feeling well. That feeling was why he had sought out rooftops when he was young, why wide-open spaces like Santa Fe had captured his heart. “It’s like the world wants t’ smother ya.”

Andrew met his eyes, and Jack finally saw what the fire was protecting: a pounding, vulnerable heart.

“I know how ya feel. I tried distancin’ myself from my friends, even from ya ma when we was younger. They loved me, but sometimes they felt too close, too.” He nodded towards his sketchbook. “Drawin’ helped me some. Drawin’ the world helped me understand it an’ control it. An’ then it became a way for me to capture the parts I never wanted t’ forget. I drew ya all the time when you was a baby, an' ya brother an' sister, too. An' I can't tell ya how often I drew ya ma.” 

Andrew's face crumpled. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “For everything I said on the way here. It wasn't--it wasn't right. I shouldn't have.”

He tried not to look stunned. Katherine said they were similar—of course. That’s exactly it. The one thing that made Jack feel better, unstoppable even, was knowing someone else had his back. Andrew was a complicated young man, but now he knew that his father always had his back. “It’s okay. Ya ma an’ I will give you space, or whatever else ya need. Ya don’t gotta push us away, bud.”

Andrew nodded and curled up in his chair, opening up his sketchbook and drawing like a fiend. Jack heaved a sigh and turned back to the city before him. Jack took in this city, the prize he had finally reached after years and years, flanked by his sons while his wife and daughter were resting nearby. Yes, it was a prize. He didn’t know what contest he was in, but this felt like a victory.

“Dad?”

“What’s up?”

“The drawings of Mom and us. Do you think we could find them?”

He’d drawn Katherine during their honeymoon, her pregnancies, and nearly every time she’d held one of their children, judging by the volume of work. He quickly turned to drawing their children, but discovered they didn’t hold still nearly long enough. There were also a few drawings of her—more than a few, actually—that he rather thought Andrew would severely regret hearing him describe. “Sure. I’ll look around for them when we’re back.”

“Cool. Thanks.” He turned back to his sketchpad. Jack couldn’t help but catch a glimpse at his work. Upon it, he saw the rough outline of a man with a young boy in his arms, looking off into a golden sunset.


End file.
